So Frustrated

[reptile_dude]

For some reason i'm just not able to breed the black or brown crickets.
I've done all of the following: used a heat mat, had up to 60 crickets at
1 time [about 40 females and 20 males], used sand, eco earth and soil as a laying substrate, tried putting mesh over the laying substrate, kept it not damp but moist, always used bug grub, bug gel and the occaisonal bit of potato or greens, never let too much waste build up, kept in an 18X10x12inch plenty ventilated container and finaly after a week and a bit I remove the laying container and placed it on top the heat mat for incubation. And for the 10th attempt this time I was delighted to find that .....nothing happend. I've read all the good sites on cricket husbendary and followed them rather closley but for me now failure has become common place. could anyone give me any tips on what to keep doing stop, doing and maybe some caresheets sorry about the long post it's just that if I can't do this I can't get anymore reps and if I can't get anymore reps I think i'm gonna thanks

[bezy bee]

dont know if it helps but we had the opp problem, our bd stopped eating her crickets (about a week) (was gravid) ahe finaly ate them then few weeks later we had 1000's of the little buggers, had to take every thing out the tank wash all the deco and change all the sand and there are still a few in there(not enought to bother the bd).

there is alway salad in the viv, so the shouldnt bother the bd and when big enought he will eat them


so dont know what we did as there was only about 5 at most in tank and dont know if male or female

[reptile_dude]

c'mon there's gotta be a simplier way... right

[reptile_dude]

Anyone?...bump

[LauraMartin]

well i am breeding them at the min, havent had any eggs hatch yet but had loads of eggs laid. did yours lay and not hatch or just not lay?

[vetdebbie]

I too am at the laying stage - first tub incubating at the mo. Have seen some clear tubey things on top of the sand tonight so am hoping......... will let you know although can't say i'm doing anything different.....

[LauraMartin]

yeah debbie those are the eggs, i have loads, just got them keeping warm and damp at the mib. i think they take 2 weeks to hatch, i only had them there a few days so dunno if they will hatch. fingers crossed

[Pliskens_Chains]

ive had crickets breed in my frogs tank before. the trick is heat humidity and mutiple food sources. they will eat fish flake for protein and potatoes for vits

[LauraMartin]

well i have mine in a large storage type plastic box, with a food dish, water (soaked cotton wool) dish and a laying pit with damp playsand, i got 2 tubs of adult black crickets and set up the tub only yesterday. as soon as i put the crickets in, the females all went to the sand and the drinking bit with cotton wool and layed eggs. i sat watching them for half an hour and about 12-15 crix all sat laying eggs. then this morning i went to see them and the sand was full of eggs so i took the sand out and put in in a livefood box sprayed it a bit and put it on top of my viv so its nice and warm and humid for the eggs. they are laying again, every time i look at them theres at least 1 sitting laying. i keep them in the shed at the min with no extra heat, its about room temp at night n warmer thru the day cos of the sun, and they are very lively and eating and laying well. i will have to have a heat source over winter, but at the min the shed is fine. perhaps u could have it too hot for them, i dunno. maybe try them just at room temp.

[vetdebbie]

bizarre thing is these eggs only appeared yesterday. they've been incubating for a week! obviously no crickets in there at the moment so not sure how they've got to the surface......